Henry Williams v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: August 15, 2002
• Docket: 13-01-00309-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

                                   NUMBER 13-01-309-CR

                             COURT OF APPEALS

                   THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

                       CORPUS CHRISTI- EDINBURG

HENRY WILLIAMS,                                                             Appellant,

                                                   v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,                                                       Appellee.

      On appeal from the 24th District Court of Victoria County, Texas.

                                   O P I N I O N

          Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Yañez and Castillo

                                   Opinion by Justice Yañez

Appellant, Henry Williams, pled no contest to a felony charge of assault on a public servant.  Pursuant to a plea agreement, appellant was sentenced to five years in state jail and ordered to pay court costs.  In exchange, the State agreed to dismiss a retaliation complaint pending against him and to the sentence to be assessed.  In the only point of error raised, appellant argues that the trial court forced him to waive his right to appeal, contending that waiver of his right to appeal was not a term of his plea agreement.  We dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

This case arises from a plea-bargain agreement, and thus, the first question that confronts us is whether we have jurisdiction to review the claim before us.  See Yarbrough v. State, 57 S.W.3d 611, 615 (Tex. App.BTexarkana 2001, pet. ref=d) (appellate court has the obligation to determine its own jurisdiction).  Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 25.2(b)(3) states, in pertinent part,

. . . if the appeal is from a judgment rendered on the defendant=s plea of guilty or nolo contendere under Code of Criminal Procedure article 1.15, and the punishment assessed did not exceed the punishment recommended by the prosecutor and agreed to by the defendant, the notice must:      

(A)  specify that the appeal is for a jurisdictional defect;

(B)  specify that the substance of the appeal was raised by written motion

       and ruled on before trial; or

(C)  state that the trial court granted permission to appeal. 

Tex. R. App. P. 25.2(b)(3).

Appellant contends that his plea was involuntary because the trial court forced him to waive his right to appeal, which constituted an additional term to the plea bargain agreement.  The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that when an appellant fails to comply with the notice requirements of rule 25.2(b)(3), the court of appeals lacks jurisdiction to consider the appeal, even for voluntariness issues.  Cooper v. State, 45 S.W.3d 77, 81 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001).

Because the punishment assessed did not exceed the punishment recommended by the prosecutor and agreed to by appellant, we must consider whether appellant=s notice of appeal is sufficient to confer jurisdiction on this Court.  The record shows that appellant filed only a pro se general notice of appeal.  The notice failed to specify that the appeal was for a jurisdictional defect, or an appeal from a ruling on a pre-trial motion, or that the trial court granted appellant permission to appeal.  Moreover, the record does not reflect that appellant obtained the trial court=s permission to appeal.   Hence, the notice of appeal does not comply with the specific requirements of rule 25.2(b)(3). 

  Accordingly, we conclude that because the notice of appeal did not comply with rule 25.2(b)(3), this Court does not have jurisdiction to address the merits of this case.

We dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.

LINDA REYNA YAÑEZ

Justice

Do not publish.  Tex. R. App. P. 47.3.

Opinion delivered and filed this the

15th day of August, 2002.